Family biography makes sense: we live in families, we remember as families, we are formed by families. Whenever a biographer tries to write one individual’s life, they end up telling the story of a family. As a genre, family biography goes one step further and embraces these other, related stories. But it’s a rare genre because it’s a daunting task and there’s few families with enough interesting members who have left the archives. Brenda Niall has not only chosen the perfect family in The Boyds: A Family Biography (2002); she’s also executed a superb biography. Continue reading →

The metal bust of Mary Durack used to greet me each day at the entry to the Battye Collection during my year working at the State Library of WA in 2007. I saw it again yesterday, a couple of days after finishing Brenda Niall’s True North: The Story of Elizabeth and Mary Durack (Text, 2012). Busts make the people of the past seem so distant, but one of the achievements of this biography to make the Duracks feel quite alive again for a time. Continue reading →

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